Author Lauren Oliver comes to the Mission Viejo Library on Sunday to talk about "Requiem," the finale to her "Delirium" trilogy.

Lauren Oliver

What: Talking about "Requiem," the finale in her "Delirium" trilogy.

When: 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Mission Viejo Library, 100 Civic Center, Mission Viejo

With "Requiem," author Lauren Oliver wraps up her trilogy of young adult novels set in a dystopian future where love is forbidden, a disease to be cured. With her heroine Lena's story wrapped up now, one wonders what it feels like for Oliver, Lena's creator, to leave this world in which she's lived for years now.

"On the one hand, it doesn't actually feel over because I think there's so much excitement around the release," Oliver says of the final book, which brings her to Orange County on Sunday. "So I still feel very much that I'm in the world of the 'Delirium' trilogy.

"In terms of finishing the trilogy, though, in some ways it was a relief," Oliver says. "I think it's kind of like when parents drop their kids off at college. On the one hand there's a lot of pride, and then there's relief that you're getting your life back from these characters."

Inspiration for "Delirium," the book that launched the trilogy in 2011, came several years earlier as Oliver considered a favorite quotation by Gabriel García Márquez, in which the Colombian novelist declared, "All good books are about love or death."

"So I'd done one about death already," Oliver says, referring to her 2010 novel "Before I Fall." "And I thought it would be good to one about love."

Around that same time, there'd been a bird flu scare, and that got her thinking about how easily it was to heighten fears about disease and pandemics. "And I thought about how if you looked at the symptoms of romantic love, especially in the early stages, it could look like a disease," Oliver says.

Some of that feeling came from her experiences with love, Oliver says.

"I've lived my life in a very – some would say impulsive, I would say passionate – way," she says. "I got engaged after three weeks. My perception of love in the times it has struck me is very all-encompassing. It can bring a lot of comfort, but also a lot of pain or fear. I think that's part of what I was drawing on."

While the "Delirium" trilogy is ending in print, its life on screen is only just starting. Fox is developing a TV series based on it and has cast Emma Roberts ("It's Kind Of A Funny Story," "Hotel For Dogs") as Lena, with Gregg Sulkin ("Pretty Little Liars," "Wizards Of Waverly Place") as Julian and Daren Kagasoff ("The Secret Life of the American Teenager") as Alex.

"I'm thrilled," Oliver says of the casting choices Fox has made so far. "I really love Emma Roberts. I think she's going to be perfect. But I have to say every single young member of the cast has been really, really wonderful. They're posting pictures of themselves reading the book; they're all very excited."

Oliver says she has several new books under way now, including "Panic," a standalone teen novel set in a small town in upstate New York, and her first novel aimed at adult readers, "Rooms," which tells the story of a family's return home to pack up a house after the death of the family patriarch.

Beyond that, she's branched out into business with a unique take on book development. Paper Lantern Lit, which she founded with Lexa Hillyer, is a literary development company that works with young or new authors.

"There's a lot of really talented writers around who don't know how to plot a book very well," she says. "So we decided we'd start a company where we'd find these great writers and then help them by plotting for them. And then over the course of a few books they take over."

In Mission Viejo on Sunday, Oliver says she will talk about "Requiem" and answer questions from fans, more of whom have shown up with each new book she's written.

"It's a lot nicer to go on tour now than it was two years ago," she says. "People are invested. They want to be there, they know so much about your books.

"There's nothing worse than going on tour and talking to a roomful of people who don't really care. And trust me that's happened a lot in the past."

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